Page 43 of Soul So Dark

“Hedied,” I say incredulously. “Dally fuckingdied.”

A smile spreads across Dallas’s face. “Awful, isn’t it?”

“Fucking bullshit,” I say bitterly, setting the book down on the table next to my glasses.

It’s not a long book, and regardless of how much I loved the rest of it, I hate the ending. After all that, Dallas Winston finally redeems himself by saving a bunch of kids from burning to death and the police waste him while he’s having a nervous breakdown.

Fascist pigs.

Maybe it’s because the drama with Aiden is still fresh and the Canaan police are more interested in being goons rather than finding Evie’s killer, but that part hit harder than I thought it would. And, yet, for some reason, sitting next to Dallas and reading about it while she playsTomb Raideris the most relaxed that I’ve been in a long time.

Nobody knows I’m here. I’m hidden. And I can finally breathe.

“I wonder if people were super awkward whenPonyboywent back to school and they found out his best friend was murdered by the police,” Dallas mutters as she sets down the controller and switches the input on the TV.

She starts flipping through channels and pauses when she sees the 80s horror movie,Fright Night, playing.

“Who’s been super awkward to you?” I ask, wondering if I need to humiliate anyone else tomorrow at school.

“My friends,” she sighs, “it’s like they suddenly don’t know how to talk to me. And then Shelby goes and makes plans for all of them to see theonemovie I’ve been waitingmonthsto see...without me.”

I sling my arm over my head and lean back against the wall. “Why’d they go without you?”

“They didn’t want tobotherme,” she hitches her voice in a mocking tone.

It’s like I’m looking at myself three years ago, except I was playingLeft 4 Deadwith her brother or shooting guns in Aiden’s backyard or escaping on vacations with Mason’s family. No one knew what to say, except for Mason’s mom, Gianna, who somehow always knows what to say.

“Grief doesn’t end,”she told me,“it just looks different as time goes on.”

And that’s what surprises me now; I thought girls would know how to deal with this better. But apparently, they can be as shitty as guys when it comes down to it.

“People don’t know how to talk about death, Dal, and it’s not your job to make them understand. But is she otherwise a good friend?”

“Shelby? Yeah,” she shrugs.

“Death freaks people out, but if you can still otherwise count on her, then that’s what matters. It’s not like Col or Aiden or Mase had anything profound to say when my dad died, but they stuck around. They stayed with me in the darkness.”

“What was it like when you had to go back to school?” Dallas asks, settling back into her pillows.

“Well,” it’s easier to talk to her now that she’s only a few inches away, “when I walked into my first class, the day after burying my dad, Jared Blakely asked if I was going to get deported because I was an orphan now.” Dallas lets out a tiny, horrified gasp. “And then Aiden and I got two more days off school because we broke his nose and knocked out two of his teeth.”

Not wasting a captive audience, I reach into my pants pocket and fish out my key ring. I hold it out to Dallas and she apprehensively extends her upturned palm.

“What’s this?” she asks, catching it and turning over a small, blue rubber coin pouch with the pun,France is Nice,printed on one side.

“All my secrets,” I reply.

Dallas casts me a sideways glance and squeezes the pouch to look inside. As soon as she does, her jaw drops.

“Is that—” she flips the pouch and dumps the contents right into her hand, “is that a tooth?That guy’s tooth?”

She marvels at the large incisor broken off at the root, nestled in her palm amongst a single brass key, a flash drive, and a miniature key-card.

“Aiden has the other tooth,” I confirm.

“Wow,” she murmurs with fascination, picking up Jared Blakely’s tooth and holding it up to examine it. Once she’s finished, she looks down at her hand, “OK, so what’s all this other stuff?”

“I told you,” I reply with a smirk, “my secrets.”